Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Mc Connellstown, PA 16660
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Mc Connellstown, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many individuals. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus offer. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most versatility and lots of tool options. You can discover many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Mc Connellstown.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more rigid ways and generally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be little since the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Mc Connellstown, Pennsylvania 16660 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real good. Many end up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.